The Raghavan Family in Bangalore: 10/01/2004

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Sunday, October 31

5 pm, and Charlie and Molly are still sleeping. Molly didn't sleep much last night, and at 6am she was burning up. Looks like she has the same virus that Maya had this past week. Her fever went up to 104 a couple days, and she was out of school the whole week. Badri and I took both Maya and Charlie to an ENT (Ear, Nose Throat specialist) at Manipal Hospital on Friday, conveniently right next door to Badri's work. While there, the ENT and Maya and Charlie's pediatrician, Chinnappa, compared notes. Maya had her ears cleaned out (I'd been giving drops in the a.m. and p.m. throughout the week to loosen things up), Charlie's to continue his second round of antibiotics for right ear infection, and we'll go see them again in two weeks to follow up.

Happy Halloween to everyone!

Saturday, October 23

Had Molly's birthday party today. Originally I planned it as a playdate with just one family of kids, then it grew to two families in the neighborhood, plus Celine Auntie's three daughters, Indira and Rita, and of course us and Patti and Thatha. So there were 8 children total and about 14 adults. Molly wore the dress that Nanny sent, with Scottish terrier dogs across the bodice. She's CRAZY about dogs, so it's perfect for her. One of her birthday presents is a lifesize rottweiler pup that she loves to hug and kiss. After everybody had had cake and ice cream, Molly and her little buddy Daniel sat down at the table with their plastic spoons and dug into what remained of the cake. Just a very nice party with no meltdowns. I think it helped that Molly napped nicely beforehand and we hade it from 3:30 to whenever.

Friday, October 22

Celebrated Dussera today. Everybody has the day off (schools and workers). In South India it's an even bigger holiday than Diwali. Dussera is also called Navratri, and it's a festival of worship, dance, and music celebrated over a period of nine nights. Today is the ninth day, where all tools, instruments, equipment, vehicles, etc. are blessed in the "Ayuda pooja". The main aim of Navratri is to worship Devi, the universal Mother. During nine days, the Divine Mother is worshipped in the form of Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati during three nights each. On the ninth day (today), we did the Saraswati pooja where school and study books are blessed. We were lucky enough to have Badri's parents visiting, and Amma organized the Ayuda pooja and Saraswati pooja.

Monday, October 18

Molly turned 2 years old today. Patti and Thatha (Molly's grandparents) arrived from Chennai for the occasion and we all went out to an ice cream parlor for an ice cream party. Molly was in heaven! Hard to believe this healthy little girl was such a peanut (5 1/2 pounds) when she was born. She thrilled her Patti when she greeted her with a Namaste today.

Yesterday I asked Maya where Molly was and she told me she was reading in our bedroom. I went in to find her, as I often do, sitting on the floor near a window reading a book. This time I had to laugh--she was methodically, slowly turning pages of the Bhagavad Gita, which is the holiest book in the Hindu faith.

Sunday, October 17

Just returned from our little getaway to Goa. Beautiful place on the ocean with lots of coconut trees. Very tropical. Split our time between the kiddie pool and ocean. Ate lots of seafood, especially yummy fish curries and tiger prawns. Maya made a couple new friends, Tarika (7) and Nidusha (4), who just happen to be from Bangalore. Their mom, Gita, is also very nice (works in Human Resources at Infosys) and hopefully we'll hook up with them again.

Charlie and Molly are getting more and more comfortable with the water and especially enjoyed the kiddie pool. They both seemed a bit intimidated by the ocean but still had fun playing with the starfish Maya was collecting in a bucket of ocean water.

I had a heavenly few swims in the Arabian Sea and Badri got to work out twice in the exercise room. Maya said the funniest thing to her cousin, Anya, when she called her to wish her happy birthday. She was telling Anya about where we were staying. Describing the place, she said, "It has two pools and one ocean!"

Wednesday, October 13

Went shopping for Molly's birthday present today at a store called Lifestyle. Boy, just like any western department store. Great toys, puzzles, educational games, etc. Pretty close to western prices though, too.

I'm packing our bags for our four day weekend trip to Goa. Goa was, until very recently, a Portuguese colony. I've been getting the kids all excited about our beach trip--it's right on the Arabian Sea. Packing the sand toys, favorite books, bathing suits--can't wait!

Sunday, Oct. 10, 2004

Yesterday we had 70 people over for lunch. Indira, Rita, Celine and Usha made a huge pot of vegetable pulao with 10 kilograms rice and 5 kg of vegetables. On Fri., Indira and Rita were here to talk about what we'd need, Indira wrote up a recipe for the proportions of what we'd buy, and Fri. afternoon and Sat. morning they cooked up a storm. We rented a 15 kg (33 pound) pot, cover, gas stove and monster spoon.

Construction site workers had a lunch break at 1:30 so we started serving the first people then. People sat on folded sheets on our front patio and food was served on giant leaves. The men sat down to eat first. When they had had two (and some of them, three) helpings, they left and made room for the next round. We served about 12 at a sitting. We later found out that it was the first time Indira had cooked this large an amount. Everything just worked out perfectly, proportions and all.

Mr. Bheig, our gatekeeper (really, he and Venkatesh are more gatekeepers than guards), later told us we had 70 people. We hadn't asked him to count, but he did on his own. A woman named Ratnama made the rangoli (the chalk/powder drawing) on our entryway. And Maya helped Appa set up the altar. They hung flowers over the Ganesha (elephant god), lit incense and candles in front, and put a small basket of pulao as an offering.

Oct. 7, 2004

Okay, getting closer to finding volunteer opportunity. Met with Parveen, our landlady, today. She's pretty involved with NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in Bangalore, and she gave me a few numbers of people to call. I'm most interested in working with women and children. One idea is to find a group working with construction site families. There are apartment buildings being built on nearly every block, and women are doing the heavy work alongside the men, with the children on site as well. We always see the kids in the park and on the streets when we're taking walks. The little five year olds are carrying their younger siblings around while the parents are working. One family down the street has three kids, two of whom are Charlie and Molly's size. I brought over a bag of clothes to them today, including a jumper that Maya had worn but that I doubted Molly would ever fit into. Later in the day I saw the little girl climbing around the construction site wearing that little jumper (she's the girl in the photo with her mom, the construction worker, wearing the jumper).

Charlie and Maya are already showing improvement. I won't talk about Charlie's improved sleeping the last two nights, because that will change if I discuss it.

Indira and Rita came over today to talk about what we need to buy for food for the lunch we'll be having at our house on Saturday. Basically, they'll come over and cook, along with Vani and Usha's help. The night and day guards will go to the construction sites in the neighborhood and invite the families that work at the sites to come over for a meal.

Usha is someone I've just hired to work a couple hours in the afternoon. We don't really need another person. She's just someone who's really grown on me. When we first moved in, she was referred to me by another American in the neighborhood. But I needed someone who could work longer hours. A couple months ago, I met another American, Sarah, and her husband Wayne. They were expecting their fourth child, and Wayne was trying to convince Sarah to hire someone to help out. I ran into Usha in the neighborhood and suggested she talk to them. Well, things worked out nicely there and she's working a few hours a day with them. She's also working for an Indian family in the neighborhood, for one and a half hours a day. Every once in a while she'd stop by to say hi and thank you for referring her to Sarah. I decided to ask her to come work with us a couple hours in the afternoon to help out. She does things like folds clothes, washes dishes, squeezes fresh lime juice, plays with Charlie and/or Molly (both kids have met her many times when she's come by) if they're not asleep and Celine needs to take a break. For those two hours (1:30-3:30), I pay her 1000 rupees, or $22 US per month. That's the going rate, and with the three jobs together she makes 3500 rupees/month ($78), which is a little more than Vani, our cook makes. Of course, Usha has to shuttle between three different houses, but they're all within blocks of each other. She has three children and a husband without a reliable source of income.

Maya had a playdate with her school friend, Grace, today. Grace is taking ballet on Wednesdays and, as they say in India, Maya's really keen to take ballet. I'll have to ask my sister Mary if she has any size 4 leotards still lying around.

And Molly got to play with her friend, Daniel, who is Sarah's (I mentioned above, who Usha's working for) youngest boy. I think he's the first kid I've seen her play cooperatively with, rather than just parallel play. Sarah came over with Daniel (2), Sammy (5), and Katie (7 weeks). They're one of the families who came to Maya's birthday party. Wayne works for an NGO dealing in water issues. One of the few expat families I know who isn't working for high tech. Very interesting people. They've both lived in Peru, and Wayne has also spent time in Bolivia.

Speaking of Peru, one of the boys in Maya's class, Paco, is from Peru, and doesn't live too far from us. I met his mom, Claudia, at the school this week. She introduced me to another classmate (Emeric's) mom, Jo, from France, who lived in Bolivia in 1988-89, the year before I went there.

Oct. 4, Monday

Took Charlie to a new doctor, Dr. Chinnappa, because I'm at the end of my rope with three months of cold symptoms. (Any name that ends in "appa" is of Coorgi origin.) Coorg is a region I talked about at length in a previous update. Badri has become a Coorgi-phile, so when he heard the doctor's name I think he immediately liked him better than the last pediatrician (who he hadn't yet met, by the way). Also, Chinnappa seems to have found something our previous doctor missed--looks like Charlie has ear infections in both sides, and has had them for awhile (didn't specify how long). As if that isn't enough, he very likely has allergies, too. He did something called a triple response test, where he lightly ran his fingernail down Charlie's back. He says allergies are likely if a red line appears. So he's on his first course of antibiotics ever, for the ear infection, and on antihistamines. Doc says to remove rugs from the house, too; get rid of all stuffed animals. Aaargh!

Later that same day I took Maya to see the same doctor. I was thinking maybe she was getting allergies, too, with the cold symptoms being around so long for her, too. He diagnosed a sinus infection, so gave her antibiotics and antihistamines as well.

Oct. 3, 2004, Sunday

Lazy Sunday. No plans, which is nice for a change. We took a walk in the neighborhood with Maya on her scooter, Charlie in the backpack, and Molly in the single stroller. Dropped by to visit our friends Sangeeta and Tutu and their two daughters, Koyal and Gazel. It's Sangeeta's birthday today, and Koyal (12 years old) had written "Happy Birthday Mom" on the front walkway in bird seed. Sangeeta and Tutu are both journalists, she at India Express and he at Deccan Herald. It's great to see how excited she is to be back at work writing after taking several years off to be home with the kids. It's Koyal, by the way, who had put 5 candles on Maya's birthday cake at her party (my Mom noticed the extra candle on Maya's cake in one of the pictures from the last update, and I explained how Koyal put the extra one, saying it's good luck).

Charlie's teething up a storm. I question whether the homeopathic route is working, but I was told it takes a while and the symptoms sometimes gets worse before they get better.

October 2, 2004

Maya had a playdate with one of her best buddies, Manaswi. They met in June when they were at the Kangaroo Kids playschool together for a few months. Manaswi speaks mostly hindi and a little English, and Maya is the reverse, but it's great to see how much fun they have together.